Yvonne Heimann [00:00:00]:
There's a version of leadership we don't talk about enough. The one where growth happens faster than your foundation can manage. Where the mission is right, the demand is there, and still something breaks. Today's guest, Angie Tebbe lived that moment in real Life. After founding Rae Wellness and reaching more than 4.5 million customers nationwide, Angie faced the reality many thousand founders quietly fear. Rapid growth exposed cracks that couldn't be fixed by just pushing harder. Supply chain challenges, partner misalignment. A business that needed space to rebuild and not just push and rush forward.
Instead of forcing the next step, Angie made a hard call. She stepped back. She took ownership. She rebuilt the company from the inside out. And in this episode, we talk about what leadership looks like when it's tested. How systems, structures and aligned partnerships become a non negotiable to scale. And what it means to return not just stronger, but steadier. Because real leadership isn't about never failing. It's about having the clarity and courage to rebuild something that can last.
Yvonne Heimann [00:01:30]:
So let me introduce you to Angie Tebbe. She is the founder and CEO of Rae Wellness. With over 4.5 million customers, Rae has redefined women's wellness. Affordable, effective, and free of shame or pretense. She's also the founder of Everwell Global, a next generation consumer platform that builds and invests in in better for you brands across wellness, personal care and home. Angie's career began at Microsoft, where she worked at the intersection of business strategy and innovation. Followed by 13 years of target, where she finished her tenure as chief of staff for their home division.
Her mission is to help women grow into their fullest selves by creating space systems and stories that support real, lasting growth. And I get to fangirl on today's episode because I actually, behind the scenes as a customer and a newsletter subscriber, followed your story. I am so excited to have you today. Angie, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story because it's a vulnerable story, right? Nobody wants to admit something went wrong in their business. So I would love to go back. First of all, welcome. Thank you so much for coming on. And for listeners that might not have heard about Rae yet, do me a favor, take us back in time.
Originally, when you started the company, the values, the goals, why did you do this? Why Rae wellness?
Angie Tebbe [00:03:06]:
Yeah. Thank you for all those kind words by the way. What a grand introduction. Great to be here. Yeah. So stepping back, I, I grew up with wellness, so let me just kind of level set with that. You know, my mom was a nurse so she introduced me to the western side of things. And my father should have been healer, he was into Reiki, homeopathy, ayurvedic medicine.
I was meditating at the age of five. So I was immersed in a world of that from a very young age. But to your point, I, I kind of let that go by the wayside and I started my career in corporate and had just a wonderful time learning about consumers, macro micro, how and when to take on trends and moreover how to build businesses. And so I was immersed in that corporate world that was so measured by quick wins, quick fixes, success. It was fast, it was loud, it was focused on performance. And for those of us that have been in corporate, often, you know, too often, also some posturing. But over time I started to really see the cracks, you know, things that I believed in, you know, brand, I saw brands without soul, I saw solutions that didn't last. Culture, you know, that was built on one data point versus the whole storytelling and the whole story and telling the truth.
Angie Tebbe [00:04:26]:
And so I just, I started to realize that there was a different way. And so I left corporate in pursuit of starting something different. And what that meant to me was evaluating what I wanted to leave this world with. And to your point, you said it in the intro, my professional why quickly became and will continue to be. I want to help women become their best selves through products and experiences. And so how you do that is, I'm not doing it through a non profit way, I'm doing it through a for profit way, really. Creating companies where wellness, honesty and integrity and culture and women can all kind of come together and thrive together. Rae specifically was founded like you said a few years ago.
And that mission was very simple. It was to make wellness more approachable, transparent and accessible for women everywhere. Created by a woman, you're looking at her. Created by a woman who was frustrated with what was out there. Confusing labels, inflated prices. Listen, I was burned out. I had a burnout level at corporate and I started saying what exists for me and I'm stressed and my digestion is weird and I'm not sleeping really great. And I realized kind of two things.
Angie Tebbe [00:05:43]:
One, there was nothing out there that was accessible, wasn't over complicated, was clean and as evidence based and what I would take. And two, there wasn't something that balanced mind and body, right? And so it was like make your digestion better by doing X, Y and Z. It's like no, no, no. Likely the reason your digestion is, is disrupted is because you probably have a high Level of stress around something. Right. So everything is so especially interconnected. And so Rae was kind of the manifestation of not just how I grew up, everything that I learned in corporate, but then also certainly, you know, just seeing a space of something that I wanted that, that didn't exist in the world.
Yvonne Heimann [00:06:28]:
And it's, it's interesting. I'm like, I would need to look back into my orders because I had come probably Instagram, I don't even remember. And my first initial reaction just was like between the brand, between reading the labels, same. I'm running in the same issues where it's like, okay, I want to take something, but all of the things and so much information and just too much and not just simple. When I came across Rae initially, oh yeah, I had my stack. I'm like, I had my rebalance, which that was my daily. I had the. Let me think about that.
The, the daily cleanse. Didn't take it daily initially though. I took it when I just didn't feel right. Just in the evening took care of things. And my pre and probiotic, which you also have some, some great supplements in there too. So I was there in the beginning and it's like on my subscription, it was the first supplement ever that I was actually able to take daily. So we had already talked in the green room. So Angie knows what's coming.
Yvonne Heimann [00:07:37]:
For anybody that's jumping in and listening why I love the supplement so much because you seriously had put freaking thought into this thing. It's the first ever supplement that I found that had a minty capsule. So I didn't have this constant oh my God, I'm taking a crappy supplement or something. And they were small. So it's the first time for somebody like me that gets that really, really struggles on taking daily vitamins, I was able to get into the habit because it didn't was just a pill.
The minty just made it. I don't know what it is in my brain that suddenly made it easier. And I want just huge ass freaking pills. And I'm like, oh my God. Somebody was freaking thinking about what the hell they were doing with this. So thank you.
Angie Tebbe [00:08:28]:
And well, I think to your point, you know, we had the opportunity to really think it through, right? And we knew so clearly who we were building it for. And so it was the wellness without overwhelm approach. It was the bringing simplicity to the crowded space. Right. Women are told, take your Ashwagandha. Take your rhodiola rosea root. Take your. We just created a product called De stress that had all of those things in it.
And then we made sure, by the way, it was little capsules. Those herbs don't smell great. So we put, you know, a mint tab in it. The capsules themselves aren't mint. It's a mint desiccant or a tab in there. And so for all those reasons, like, and by the way, it feels nice. The packaging is like this soft touch. It's beautiful to look at, right? So something that aesthetically, women could also talk to their friends about having their handbag or put on their kitchen sink.
And it looks. Or the bathroom, you know, the bathroom shelf and it looks beautiful. And so we kind of had this like really simple view on what women wanted. And then we just developed into that we did our research
Yvonne Heimann [00:09:35]:
And made it affordable too. So it's not like when you look at other supplements where it's like 50, 60, 80 bucks a month. No, it's completely affordable. So everything for me as a, for me as a user, for me as a customer, it was the perfect packaging. Between, I'm like, I'm a content creator too, right? So I know my branding between the branding, between the messaging, between the pricing, between also the results. So it's not just that it's a nice packaging. I felt different and so excited. And then suddenly something happened.
Now with you being here and everybody listening, we know the hero's journey is already coming out again. But there was that dip of life punched you in the face. Life punched you in the face. Let's just say it what it is from the bits and pieces that I do know, that I know from your blog, that I know from you sharing, life pretty much smacked you over the head. So do me a favor, tell the audience. How does one go from having such an amazing company? I think you ended up before life happened, in Walmart, in Target, I think in Target 2, you were on Amazon. You had your own website, shopping cart and subscription platform. You had an amazing social media platform.
Yvonne Heimann [00:11:08]:
I felt like I also was in the universe. Rae was everywhere on the top of the mountain and suddenly something happened and I couldn't get my supplies anymore. What hap. And for everybody that's just jumping into the story. We did get notifications in emails and stuff. It's not just like, oh my God, is it just suddenly gone? Yes, there was a little bit of that, but we weren't completely out of the loop. But for everybody that's just jumping in. We often have this, this public perception of, oh my God, amazing company.
Nothing can happen to them. And suddenly something did happen. What happened?
Angie Tebbe [00:11:51]:
You know, to your point, we, we scaled so fast and there was an extreme brand love. And it was in the loyalty was. Was something. It was almost like identity level adoption.
Yvonne Heimann [00:12:06]:
That's how I felt. It was like, it's my home.
Angie Tebbe [00:12:10]:
Yeah. And it was. Yeah, it was like a home. And, and our. And it is like a home, not past tense. And. And our community on TikTok called us Rae Rae, endearingly. Right.
And so, and so there was just this, this immense amount of love because I think that everyone understands that we built this off of the right. With the right mission in mind. Right. And there was, it was truth and transparency, and we covered the brave topics around sex, you know, and stress and all the things that people really wanted to know about. So we scaled really quickly. Zero to 4.5 million customers in three years. It was, it was with. With crazy repeat rates.
So those four and a half were buying a lot. Right. And. And the crazy thing was two, two things kind of happened, you know, one, we had a misaligned partner and then secondly, we had a. We had a retail mishap. We're not focusing on that. I think the important thing is, you know, man, there are moments in life when, when everything changes when you least expect it. I know everybody has gone through a moment like that, right? Whether it be family, friends, business, professional, whatever it is.
Angie Tebbe [00:13:24]:
And there's moments when things take a turn and really shake you to your core. And this was one of those moments for me, deep down, I knew we were on the right path. And I'm speaking because I know everybody's had an experience like this where, you know, either something gradually or suddenly changes that you just, you can't expect, you can't predict. And challenges oftentimes, not just the status quo of what you thought you were living, but a core belief and a deep down belief. And for me, raised pause was one of those moments. I was like, we're doing so many things right and supporting so many women on their wellness journeys across different wellness dimensions. Right. They were taking our sexual wellness product, and then they were taking stress and helping their digestion because these things are interrelated.
Angie Tebbe [00:14:16]:
And so it really shook me and my core beliefs around, oh, if you're doing the right thing, it should work right? And for all intents and purposes, it did. But the big moment was, you know, we had to make a call where to rectify, you know, especially that retail, that big retail error. The investment was so big that we had to take a Pause and ask ourselves this question is, how much is it? What is it worth? What does it look like? And you know, is it really worth kind of staying the course or do we need to change course? And I gotta be honest, I thought it was over. I really, truly thought it was over. It was really tough. I had to do a lot of nervous system work. I had to really navigate, like, wow, failure. This is a big failure.
Angie Tebbe [00:15:14]:
The big F word. It was a massive learning. What am I going to do? What am I going to do with my life now? This was my life. It was my identity. This is my identity level adoption. And so this was a massive moment where it was a year. I had other roles, I was consulting. But at the end of the day, man, did our community show? Woman, did our community show up? It was.
It was insane. And when I was ready to kind of take a peek back into it, our community never left. They were interviewing store employees, asking where we were. They were over 10,000 people a month were still on our website, asking questions, emailing us, leaving reviews on a broken website. Like, I couldn't believe how much we had meant to people. I kind of knew, but I really found out when people weren't, you know, I was ready to let it go. I had let it go. Our community was not ready to let it go.
Angie Tebbe [00:16:15]:
And so, you know, we kind of put a new pair of pants on, so to speak, and reformed the company and, you know, retrenched what should it be. But fundamentally, there were so many things, right, that we just said, you know, how do we work this thing and move quickly? I'm not saying we're not going to scale quickly, but with more intentionality and thought behind making sure that, you know, this time we don't break and certainly we don't disappoint.
Yvonne Heimann [00:16:47]:
And it's interesting. I'm like, I'm. I'm building a business similar around to you. And again, knowing marketing, knowing storytelling and all the things, and even I. I couldn't tell you why. From the first time I came across Rae, it was. It is still a connection. I'm the one too, who regularly, every other month or something, checked on the website.
Are we back in stock? What's happening? Not the one that went so far to jump on and reply till I got the notification. We are back. That's when I jumped on the newsletter. And I'm like, oh my God, yes, please. And I don't know. And I don't think it's just a marketing thing. I don't think it's just a mission statement thing. I think it's because this business, because this supplement, with everything it is, with all of the little bits and pieces that go into Rae, that makes it what it is because it's so deep ingrained in you, your personality, how I see you engage with people, your own values and mission is why we all connected so much.
Yvonne Heimann [00:18:07]:
And just this, I don't know. The first time I came across Rae, it's like I felt seen without even having bought any supplement or anything. So I am always excited about coming across women like you, coming across businesses like way where it's like Rae, we've seen a problem, we've seen an issue, we've seen what the world is currently and we don't agree. We want to make it better. We want to open it up in which way ever we do that. And I think you have done an amazing job doing it with this company. Which is why again, the newsletter came out when you did the announcement, I think back in December of We are back, I was screaming. I was literally sitting here at this desk.
I'm like, oh, my God, they are back. I can finally stop trying to figure out my fucking supplements and just get my supplements back. I want to meet Angie. I want to have on the podcast. It was like Christmas for me. And I would love for my audience to be able to. To tell you ladies on what Angie did that it is. I can't tell you.
Yvonne Heimann [00:19:17]:
I don't know. I would love to box it up for every woman out there that has the same values and passion as you do. Because I'm going back to that moment of fuck this. It's all burned down. Everybody. It feels, I'm assuming when you were in it, when, when everything just smacked you over the head, I imagine that being a moment of fuck you. The world is against me. Why the heck am I even trying? That's kind of what I think that might have felt.
And just seeing you still listening, still getting the support, still getting the feedback, still having all of these women on your side and deciding, you know what? Fuck it, we did well. We did good. Just a couple of things that didn't work out. We can do it again. I'm excited about it. I'm thankful that you fought it and maybe you have a recommendation or a tip or something that can help somebody else that's in that moment of, oh my God, the world is totally fucking against me. Why am I even trying? Do you have a tip for them to get through this and not burn it all to the ground? Because as we see on your company, it's worth it.
Angie Tebbe [00:20:41]:
You know, everybody loves a comeback kid story, but nobody wants to be the comeback kid.
Yvonne Heimann [00:20:46]:
Oh, girl, I hear you on that one.
Angie Tebbe [00:20:49]:
Because, you know, everybody loves these stories and wants a bit, but being it takes work, it's crazy. And, you know, I, I love what you were saying about, you know, when you, you're talking about a feeling, right? You can't even articulate what Rae made you feel because it's a feeling. It's a. How do you sum up a feeling in words? It's really hard. You can sum up a business model, you can sum up your product. But like, to, to have the privilege of creating something and bringing a new idea into the world that, I mean, that's being an entrepreneur that nobody's ever done before, right? It is, it was, it evoked this feeling in people because what we did was so intentional. And then also knowing that, you know, from the very beginning I was, I told the team, everybody, we're not building this for me, we're not building this for us. We're building it for our community.
Angie Tebbe [00:21:40]:
And so knowing that kind of as my, you know, core belief was, this isn't about me. If it's about me, I would have made different financial decisions. But like, it is, it wasn't about me. And I knew at that time, you know, I needed to look in the telescope versus microscope. This is something that one of my investors taught me early on. He always said, like, you have to have one eye as an entrepreneur, as a telescope, and one is a microscope, right? One is the day to day, kind of, you know, fighting the fight. What are you learning? What are they responding to? What do you need to do? And one is a telescope, which is, is this aligned with what I'm building? And so this too much microscope creates overthinking this too much telescope creates like too much strategy, way too vague of intentions, it's, etc. But together it's so interesting because that is kind of the sweet spot, right? Of long term, short term, long term, short term.
Angie Tebbe [00:22:38]:
And I was doing that. I was living in the short term, I was so living in the short term, trying to get through it. You know, I've got three little boys, busy life. What do I do? Do I even have time to think about what's right for me, much less the community and all of those sorts of things. But the moment, the moment I put the telescope back, it started to make a lot of sense why these women were continuing to show up, right? And as soon as I started to really look at the next years of what do I want to do and what do I want to build. It was such a core identity piece for me in the community. I was like, I owe it to everybody to give it another go. And I started doing some worst case scenarioing if 1% of our customers come back or whatever.
Angie Tebbe [00:23:24]:
And I'm like, it still is something worth doing. Because funny, the response has been very much like, I was mad at you, but I'll marry it. But I'm back married to you. Just don't ever do this to me again. I had a really tough time without you and now I'm really thrilled that you're back. And so this notion of like, I knew that we needed to do it for those reasons because that was already being communicated. Now that we're back, those reasons are being reiterated. The response has been off the charts.
Not just the excitement, but the actual results. And so, and we're less than 30 days in. And so for those reasons, like, I just, I needed to put the telescope on and put a new pair of pants on. Because that's what you do as entrepreneurs, right? Like, nothing goes your way. Typically, you know, it's 60% doesn't go your way, 40% does. And so on a daily basis. And so you need to really, really take a long term view. And I just, I knew, I knew, I had a feeling, right? I didn't have the proof, I had some data, but I had a feeling that in my instincts and always trust your instincts, especially as a woman, that this was what I needed to be doing, so rebuilt it.
Angie Tebbe [00:24:34]:
There was a few people from the team who still hadn't let go either. They were doing other things too, but they were like, I knew this would come back. And I think they even knew before I even knew that this is kind of what came back. But I think I needed, I think, I think the pause needed to happen, obviously for the company, but it was a great pause for me personally to kind of get over the hump of, of failure. Come back, kid. Do I want to do this? You know, how, how do we, how do we want to, how do we want to build back into this thing?
Yvonne Heimann [00:25:01]:
And I love that part of your team was in it with you too. My own company, we got hit over the head like I haven't had in ages. In 2024, rebuilding 2025. And we are back on top at this point. But there were moments where I, I found my assistant, my right hand, my mini me. I couldn't run the business without that woman. I had to find her a secondary part time job because I could not take well enough care of her in that moment. And she's freaking stuck around and she knows before I completely would have fired her during that time I would have eaten ramen.
And she believes in the mission. She believes in where we are taking the company. And having people like that around you is invaluable. Especially a lot of our loved ones that might not be that much in the business or in the vision or the mission of it. They might just want to save you. They might just be like they're not the most financial responsible decision. You sure you want to do that? And they're doing it out of love, they're doing it out of wanting to save us. So having people around us that believe in the mission, that are there, that are pulling along with us when things get dicey are invaluable.
Angie Tebbe [00:26:23]:
And there were a lot of dark days, right. So I don't mean to like gloss over the dark like there was a lot of dark days, there was a lot of hard times. To your point on the financial questions, I have a family. We have a family, you know, so three young boys. And so for all those reasons, yeah it was, it was not easy. But I think like anything you just when you know, you know, and again financially we, we went into My Target Corporate 401k, grab some cash to restart this thing. Right. So for all those reasons like that wasn't easy.
That's another family financial decision. That's another. So, so it, it's, it is a lot and I don't mean to minimize the that but I think, I think I am one of the very few lucky people and I don't take it for granted that I know, I kind of know what I was put on the finally, right. I'm starting to figure out what I was put, put here to do and this was a big part of it. And so when you know that it is, it's, it's that it is that that's what you do. And so, so that's, that's why we're here. I feel very, you know, grateful and to our beloved. Beloved, our beloved community.
Right. For, for not letting me let it go. And I know that sounds wild, but they just, they just didn't. And they're, they're, they're showing up as we speak. Continued continually.
Yvonne Heimann [00:27:51]:
And again, it's like I don't even know what sparked me on that announcement on the we are back email newsletter that went out. I think Mid December to just reply. It's again, I can't. The only word I can put to it is belonging. And I'm curious, what's the future like for Angie and Rae. Where are you taking this? What is this continuing to be and becoming? What are your future plans?
Angie Tebbe [00:28:19]:
Yeah, we always wanted to be, to your point, a home and belonging. So I'm so glad that you felt like you could just do that and reply and reach out because that's exactly what it's about. We are here to listen, we're here to learn, respond as quickly as we can.
Yvonne Heimann [00:28:36]:
It didn't even take 24 hours and I had an initial reply.
Angie Tebbe [00:28:39]:
Oh, really?
Yvonne Heimann [00:28:40]:
I don't even reply that fast to email.
Angie Tebbe [00:28:42]:
I didn't even know that. That's incredible. That's incredible. That says a lot. So we, you know, we, we're going to continue to show up and make sure that we are solidly showing up. We've got some amazing additions to the product portfolio coming soon. I still believe in the value of retail, to be clear. You know, despite the challenges that we had, I still feel like the right partnerships at the right time are really important, especially in consumer goods, to leverage, to leverage brand and scale and accessibility, to be there where the people are, where your community is.
Angie Tebbe [00:29:25]:
So all of those things are coming. With that said, we've always sought, and I'm going to start being vague here intentionally, but we've always sought to be a wellness forward view into community. And so there's a lot of things that you can do to help support women in their wellness as it pertains to content, experiences, conversations, more products, different products. And so that's the road that we're on. With that said, solidly living in the world less than 30 days in to be able to just make sure that we are doing everything that we promised and coming back with a full suite of products and being in stock and all of those sorts of things. So again, telescope, microscope, the microscope view is living to make sure that we are executing day by day. But the telescope being this is one view into women and their wellness. That is a really amazing start.
But we've always had dreams of taking this community, this very diverse community that we've cultivated and making sure that we can help them even more in depth.
Yvonne Heimann [00:30:44]:
And for everybody listening or watching, if you want to check it out, what the heck I'm talking about. And the belonging way. Wellness isn't just, as Angie already said, it's not just products. There is educational behind it. There's your blog that you had started. There's there is community there as always. We have all the links in the descriptions and everything. And Angie, the invitation already goes out to you.
I would love to have you back on once you are out of the launching phase and you are stabilized and you can take a breather and revisit all of the story. Thank you. Just thank you. Thank you for building a company that I believe is and that I see as intentional mission based for the greater good to help others. Thank you for popping into the email when some crazy random person just emailed you on your newsletter. And just thank you. Thank you for making this world a better place.
Angie Tebbe [00:31:52]:
Oh well thank you. This has been so fun. Truthfully, the more I can share the story again, right. I'm hopeful that more people again it's hard to be the comeback kid but I'm hopeful that you're seeing a trend especially around women and coming back to their businesses and the immense belief they have in what they built and, and and it's working. So I'm thrilled to be a part of that, you know, more, more broad trend as well.
Yvonne Heimann [00:32:26]:
Yeah. And it's nice, it's nice to watch. I'm like especially with with the podcast I meet so many women where it's similar. It's it's our businesses just across the board is passion based is something is lack based. We want to make a change. So I'm always really really excited to feature women like yo that are doing the work that in our community, in our sphere in where we can make changes make changes for a better and yeah I don't. Yes. Thank you.
Thank you and for everybody listening. You want to meet more women like Angie, go hit the subscribe button. Check out Rae Wellness. By the way my my favorite just because I have it open pre and probiotic rebalance the daily cleanse and the de stress if you have a shitty week and it's the third Monday of the week. Yes, that's my collection with that everybody. Thanks so much for joining us. Angie, thanks so much for joining me and just replying to a crazy woman replying to your new newsletter.
Angie Tebbe [00:33:37]:
Thank you.
Yvonne Heimann [00:33:39]:
Bye everybody.